It's a special day in Dracula!
Jonathan experiences a flashback to the Horrors, Mina experiences bisexuality in the wild, and the poor nameless Pretty Girl in Piccadilly rides out of the story, parcel in hand and chic cartwheel hat on, oblivious to the Count stalking after her. In honor of the anonymous young lady who proves for a third time that Dracula and Mina have literally the exact same taste—Jonathan, Lucy, random beauties on the street—I wanted to take a crack at giving her an identity.
But I am also indecisive as hell, so she can be one of a number of pretty persons of note. For example…
Miss Piccadilly #1: Clarimonde
My original favorite choice, if only because I love the idea of Clarimonde still cruising around after the heartbreak she left behind in her own story, “La Morte Amoureuse” (The Dead Woman in Love), aka “Clarimonde.” She is now and always the undead Parisian party queen of my heart, but I could see her traveling around to dabble in hedonism in other corners of the world. Naturally she has to go and catch the attention of the local aristos. Human or otherwise.
But, of course, she is psychic and can read Dracula like a bloodstained book. Keep walking, bat bastard. Her vampiric voluptuousness is reserved for VIPs. (Maybe that fetching mourning couple she saw gawking in the park…)
Miss Piccadilly #2: Helen Vaughan
Oh, Helen Vaughan, elegant hostess and demigoddess horror supreme. I don’t care what Arthur Machen says, your story did not end with the conclusion of The Great God Pan. You were life and death and human and beast and all the hideous realities in-between and a mortal end could never keep you down. Especially not when you have so many paramours left to entertain! So many secrets profane and maddening to share! One of these days you’ll catch one who won’t dissolve into madness and self-destruction after a little innocent eldritch chit-chat.
Like this charming Count here! Count? Count, where are you going? Count, she just wants you to meet her dad—why are you running? Why are you running?
Miss Piccadilly #3: Luna Blue
What’s this? An OC?
Well, of course. No one’s actually naming their child Luna Blue in the late 1800s; that’s just her professional pseudonym. It’s amazing how well the spiritualist movement can work out for a girl with a knack for shuffling painted cards or chatting with the night sky and the occasional planchette. She can even boast something more than showmanship behind her skill. The sort of ‘something’ that worried Transylvanians might whisper about in fear on a certain haunted date while a likewise worried solicitor breaks out the polyglot dictionary.
She recognizes Dracula for what he is as surely as he recognizes her. No, she is not interested, voivode. Even if she was, she’d be out a benefactor within—a hard look at him here; cold and far—oh dear. Scarcely more than a month. At least by her guess. But oh, there is good news in his future too! He shall cross paths with an old friend soon! How lovely. She’s certain these things are not connected. Don’t even worry about it.
Miss Piccadilly #4: Cosette Marchand
The fourth and final young lady in the roster is one more original character and she deserves absolutely none of the horror coming her way. This is Miss Cosette Marchand, an artist by hobby and profession. The parcel received from the jeweler’s was a commissioned necklace and earrings she designed herself. A glittering birthday gift for her mother who will chide her for such an extravagance, Cosy, she has no place to wear such things! But they are lovely…
She’s so lost in her daydreaming that she doesn’t realize the hansom behind her has been following the victoria since leaving Piccadilly Square. All the way home. Home, where there are no bloodletting suitors, no wise professors, no divine or diabolic powers to forestall the natural progression of things between predator and prey. There is only a nightmare waiting for her, unobstructed.
…By anything other than my own bleeding heart. I’m too attached. She has to make it.
So.
How does Miss Marchand’s story go?
Turns out, her mother has some experience in these matters. Her mother being one Laura Marchand, who left a thirsty terror of her own behind twenty years ago. One she has mourned as much as feared in the time between the love of a husband eaten by war and the sharper kisses of a girl far more than a friend or living being. She recognizes the sour reflection of Carmilla’s eagerness in the Thing pretending to be a nobleman at the door. She still has General Spielsdorf’s axe. She has kept the steel sharp. Tonight she will whet it sharper still, from dusk until dawn.
You see all that yellow in her dress. It’s recently become one of her favorite colors, owing to a most diverting play she happened to read. Such lush storytelling! What decadent inspiration! She simply had to design something fine in honor of it. She does hope her mother will appreciate the artful way the gold was wrought, twisting in echo of the Sign. A mother who has gone so strangely still since she happened to glance at the second act of the play. Still and cold. Perhaps she will be cheered by her gift and their guests. There is a nobleman at the door, Mother! And there, see, leaking from the yellow damask wall is His Tattered Majesty—oh. Where has their visitor gone? He shall miss the masquerade! Ah, well. His loss.
Scheherazade…2! In which Miss Marchand pulls a Jonathan by stalling via playing to charm and utility. She wears many hats beside the cartwheel when it comes to the arts. Portraiture, fashion in fabric and ornaments. Surely the Count can savor the spider-and-fly game a little longer for that and some pretty panicked smiles. Look how much patience and frustration he burned on Lucy! Yes, yes, a little while longer to draw things out, play at flirtation between artist and patron, isn’t this nice? Ha ha. (Please don’t drink me please don’t drink me please don’t drink me.)
Well. She got drinked. And maybe succumbed to death before the Count could get slain. But the bat bastard does get put down eventually and she still gets to pop back up! Good news: She’s not under the Count’s thrall! She can think and act for herself! Nice! Bad news: Vampire. At least she can drink her problems* away. (*Problems with names like Atherton, Wotton, Gray…)
Her neighbors are the other three Piccadilly girls. Dracula makes his way downtown, walking fast, walking faster—
Werewolf free space.
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i am so incredibly autistic about them you people have no idea
rambles and stuff under cut
anyways. so heres chat my beloved. brain decided twitch chat was most important character ever. now im stuck like this, with a little purple hivemind as a comfort. wonderful. i even have a roblox avatar of them it looks like this
isnt it awesome. it barely looks like them but it gets the point across. i love it. it makes me so happy. they make me so happy. for no reason. i love how my design of them has evolved over time.
have i ever shown them without robes to tumblr? they have black fur under the robes! entirely black! the white parts only go to their joints! isnt that so awesome? that part of the design is kind of a remnant from their old designs, where i still drew them with a hat. cuz they would hide the black fur and pretend it was all white. to match the mask of course. and of course now the dark fur is on display. because i decided fuck it i love drawing fluff they can be a little fluffy as a treat.
and also, if you look at older drawings, they used to have shoes. why get rid of them? 1. paws too big to fit in the shoes 2. i didnt want to draw shoes 3. i like drawing paws. fight me.
is this the most self indulgent ive ever been publically about them? maybe. but also this is my blog. and if you're as insane about rttopia as me youll take any art you can get, whether it appeals to your views or not. this is what 3 years of a special interest encompassing every single aspect of your life does to a mf. you get a chat design so far removed from the original mii its insane. and i wouldnt have it any other way. i love them like this, with all my headcanons stacked and piled so high the top cannot be seen with the naked eye. i hope in the future it gets even higher, with my designs getting more complex as more lore and love is poured into these characters, until eventually theyre unrecognizable. power of autism.
this ramble has gone on long enough and if you read it all im very thankful, have a lovely day !!! :D
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I don't like wading into Ao3 debates, but I want to give my professional opinion on Ao3 with regard to archives vs. libraries.
I am a professional librarian (MSLS) and I have worked in both archives and public libraries and a lot of the confusion and concern I see surrounding Ao3 is a fundamental misunderstanding of How Archives Work.
An archive is a collection related to a subject. That subject is often a person but sometimes a field or concept or project. And the purpose of an archive is to keep everything. And I mean everything. I was going to say "short of biohazards" but since I know there's a sealed R. Crumb Devil Gal chocolate bar in the UNC Chapel Hill archives, we really do mean everything.
When a collection of materials--which are usually unique and original and can be photos, manuscripts, letters, recordings (audio and/or visual), notes and notebooks, objects, published books, whatever--on and/or from the subject arrive at the archive, they are examined, preserved for longevity, accessioned and cataloged (added to the archive's records), and added to the archive. You measure collections in linear feet. As in, once it's all preserved and boxed and secure, you note how many feet of shelf space it takes up. And some of y'all on Ao3 have a lot of linear feet to your name (and I'm proud of you).
This is an archive: it is designed to preserve the original materials related to a subject. That is its purpose. Archives are how we have the original scroll manuscript of On the Road, for example, or the Lomax recordings of American folksongs, or Tijuana Bibles, or James Joyce's loveletters to Nora.
Now you, a member of the public, can access some archives. Some are easier to access than others. The one I worked in was open to the public; good luck getting into the British Archives without a good reason.
So now apply this to Ao3--which is an archive both in name and in purpose. It is intended to preserve fan-created content long term. And this means everything, whether you personally like the materials or not. It is a repository for as much as possible.
And the "whether you personally like the materials or not" is important, hence why I mentioned Jim's loveletters and Tijuana Bibles in particular. (RIP Jim, you would have loved pegging.)
If it's made by fans and it exists, we should keep it to document the history and progression of fandom. That is the point. We have lost enough materials related to the subject of fans of media and we don't need to lose any more.
The fact of the matter is that Ao3 is only one facet of the OTW, which preserves other fan-related materials (convention booklets and zines, for example). Somehow Ao3, an archive on the subject of fanfiction, has been divorced from the rest of the project, mostly by way of "purity culture" and panic over "dangerous" fiction.
The fact that you can go through an archive and find interesting information is the other side of archives. No, they shouldn't be like the banker's box of old letters stuffed in my closet. Yes, they should be organized and as accessible as is appropriate for the state of the materials.
It's really, really cool to find stuff in an archive, I'm not even going to lie. I have done it before and I will do it again. And yet there are other items in an archive that I might not want or need or be interested in at all--but they're still there. That's the cataloging and accessioning: to keep up with what's there, to stay "on topic" with collecting, and to be able to find things in that archive. Bless the tag wranglers who are doing the cataloging at Ao3.
The pearl clutching seems to come from 1. the creation of "dangerous" fanworks and 2. public access to those "dangerous" fanworks. These are issues of "purity culture" and opinions on censorship and should not involve Ao3.
Ao3, under the umbrella of the OTW, is a documentation and preservation project first and foremost.
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⭐ Besties on break ⭐
It's up as a print on my inprint ! :))
Kiki 4 bouba type ship
Loved imagining Uhura's space btw !!!! I had so much fun with the background ! Does it make sense ? Not really- but the vibes are here (I kept unconsciously adding tribbles kfkfk had to stop myself at six otherwise I would have just filled the scene with them)
[COMMISSION] - [PRINTS]
Process and rambling below vvv
The fact that quiji, back in 2022, showed me like 2 episodes before we watched the first movie.... And that I didn't hate it (still think the beginning is way too slow, especially for someone not really familiar with the characters, and the uniforms are *horrible*), should have been a sign that this fucking show would eventually consume my brain fklfof
Anyway this summer we watched more of the show and also watched up to the fourth movie ! And omfg the fourth one in particular rewrote my brain ckfkkf the Nimoy vision is incredible, the blorbos in silly situations after a pretty angsty movie, their flop era in a space clio 2, the whales- also thank god the marine biologist and old ass Kirk didn't have a romance (I'm choosing to interpret her as french, so that the little kiss on the cheek at the end is just a normal bise, the normal way to say goodbye to someone you now concider your friend <3 and not a hint of romantic interest toward this man who is 1) already married to Spock and 2) could be her dad)
I am now normal about this show I promise ! :)))))
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PAY THE PRICE — smau
after getting evicted out of your old place, you're left with no other choice but to look for a cheaper alternative. which is how you end up becoming neighbours with lee haechan, who has a passion for music and disturbing whatever peace and quiet there is.
or in which you found yourself a very nice apartment, the only issue? your neighbour is your friend's somewhat ex-situationship who won't stop playing his guitar at 2 am in the night.
neighbour!haechan x fem!reader
genre ; enemies to lovers, angst, fluff, probably slow burn, humour, neighbours au.
extras ; haechan is kinda an asshole | boy next door + likes everyone but you trope-ish | profanity and death jokes because they’re silly! | probably romantic tension | some mark x reader here and there | renjun and jaemin having their own e2bffs moment | probably inaccurate depiction of how someone would get evicted pls don’t shoot me 😅
notes ; i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan i love haechan <333 idk i got nothing better to do now so i’ll just start this because i know i won’t be posting any of the other long fic wips any time soon 😭
PLAYLIST ; She , Tyler The Creator — For The Night , Chloe Bailey — IDK WHAT TO TELL YOU , Bktherula — Surprise , Chloe Bailey — I Wanna Be down , Brandy — Suite Life , FLO — Is It A Crime? , No Guidnce — Round&Round , NCT U .
STATUS ; ongoing and hopefully regular updates.
profiles (1) profiles (2)
intro
1 ) jaehyun’s trophy wife
2 ) free cookies (not really)
3 ) midnight disturbance
4 ) attempted murder?
5 ) THIS IS FAMILY
6 ) haechan’s second identity
7 ) kiss buddies and useless complaints
8 ) critically acclaimed idgaf veteran
9 ) founders keepers..?
10 ) yangyang’s new interest (y/n)
11 ) a late welcome party
12 ) invest in a cage jaemin
13 ) cat fight (REAL)
14 ) the cure to a lack of sleep = cup pong
15 ) who said quiet guys can’t be freaky?
16 ) you got a girlfriend?
17 ) i DO have a girlfriend
18 ) this is life, i love life..
19 ) nah. they fucking.
20 ) let’s play apex?
21 ) whole house mad
22 ) drunken regrets
23 ) he’s got to be fucking with me..
24 ) a sincere apology letter (kinda)
25 ) are we cool or not?
26 ) we’re good (for real)
27 ) a personal guitar lesson
28 ) LIVE TWEETING YNHAE MOMENTS
29 ) a moment of vulnerability
30 ) friendly q&a between friends
31 ) that’s strange.. that’s weird..
32 ) solution to job loss = family guy (???)
33 ) what has jaehyun done for society?
34 ) ynhae bonding activity hours
35 ) an unwanted double date with yangyang
36 ) an overwhelming realisation
37 ) the universe can kill itself
38 ) a “what are we” conversation
39 ) i got that hair too, kinda
40 ) reviewing haechan’s tweet and new issues
41 ) diagnosed with the crush disease
TBA . . .
BONUS:
TBA . . .
TAGLIST is closed
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